The Ape Who Guards the Balance - Elizabeth Peters [31]
It had taken them long enough to admit it. I couldn’t resist. “That,” I said, “is because neither of you knows—”
“Anything about women?” Ramses finished.
The moon was high and bright. I could see his face clearly. It was what I call his stone-pharaoh face, stiff and remote as the statue of Khafre in the Museum. I thought he was angry until he leaned forward and pulled me off the bench and hugged me so hard I could feel my ribs creaking. “One of these days,” he said in a choked voice, “you are going to make me forget I am supposed to be an English gentleman.”
Well, my dear, I was pleased! For years I’ve been trying to shatter that shell of his and get him to act like a human being. Occasionally I succeed—usually by stirring up his temper!—but the moment never lasts long. Making the most of that particular moment, I held on to him when he would have drawn away.
“You’re trembling,” I said suspiciously. “Are you laughing at me, curse you?”
“I am not laughing at you. I’m shaking with terror.” I thought I felt his lips brush my hair, but I must have been mistaken, because he returned me to the hard seat with a thump that rattled my teeth. Ramses has the most formidable eyebrows of anyone I know, including the Professor. At that moment they met in the middle of his forehead like lifting black wings. I had been right the first time. He was absolutely furious!
“Hell and damnation, Nefret! Will you never learn to stop and think before you act? You were quick and brave and clever and all that rot, but you were also bloody lucky. One of these days you are going to get yourself in serious trouble if you rush headlong into action without—”
“You’re a fine one to talk!”
“I never act without premeditation.”
“Oh, no, not you! You have no more feelings than a—”
“Make up your mind,” said Ramses, between his teeth. “I can’t be both impetuous and unfeeling.”
David reached out and took my hand (fist, rather; I admit it was clenched and raised). “Nefret, he’s scolding because he was frightened for you. Tell her, Ramses. Tell her you aren’t angry.”
“I am angry. I . . .” He stopped speaking, drew a long breath and slowly let it out. The eyebrows slipped back into their normal position. “Angry with myself. I failed you, my brother. I failed Nefret too. She wouldn’t have had to take such a hideous risk if I had been more alert.”
David took Ramses’s outstretched hand. His eyes shone bright with tears. David is as sentimental as Ramses is not. I am all in favor of sentiment—as you know—but the reaction had hit me and I was starting to shake too.
“None of that,” I said sternly. “As usual, you are taking too much on yourself, Ramses. An exaggerated sense of responsibility is a sign of excessive egotism.”
“Is that one of Mother’s famous aphorisms?” Ramses was himself again. He released David’s hand and smiled sardonically at me.
“No, I made it up myself. You were both at fault this time. You’d have seen the knife, as I did, if your masculine conceit hadn’t assumed that there was nothing to be feared from a woman. My suspicions were aroused the instant she appeared; it was too much of a coincidence that a lady of the evening should present herself at that precise moment, when we’d seen no sign of activity in the house earlier. Establishments of that sort aren’t so discreet as to—”
“You have made your point,” Ramses said, looking down his nose at me.
Something rustled through the reeds along the bank. None of us started; even I have learned to know the difference between the movements of a rat and those of a man. I do not much like rats, though, and I wanted to go home.
“Be damned to that,” I said, trying to look down my nose at him (that’s not easy when the other person is almost a foot taller). “Thanks to our combined quick wits and daring we got away unscathed, with the papyrus, but we haven’t settled the vital question of how to remain unscathed. What went wrong tonight?”
Ramses settled back on the seat and rubbed his neck. (The adhesive itches, even after it